Oh you unbelieving generation! How long shall I be with you and how long do I have to put up with you?

 

“Oh you unbelieving generation! How long shall I be with you and how long do I have to put up with you?”

(The Words of Jesus)

Considering that Jesus is aware that He will soon suffer a cruel and tortuous crucifixion, and knowing that His time is short, I find these words oddly ironic. It might seem as if He would rather reach His appointed time on the cross than have to put up with an adulteress and unbelieving generation – particularly when His own disciples behave as such:

“Teacher, I brought You my son, because he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes stiff. And I told Your disciples so that they would cast it out, but they could not do it.”

And He answered them and said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?

Bring him to Me!” And they brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, the spirit immediately threw him into convulsions, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to kill him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” But Jesus said to him, “‘If You can?’ All things are possible for the one who believes.”

Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again!” And after crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, “He is dead!” But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him, and he got up.

When He came into the house, His disciples began asking Him privately, “Why is it that we could not cast it out?”

It also seems odd to me that when Christians do not or cannot perform or experience what Jesus clearly taught and modeled, they tend to make excuses, and then formalize their excuses into doctrines – doctrines that are diametrically opposed to the clear words of Jesus. For example, Jesus called His twelve disciples to Himself and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. (See Matthew 10:1). Now-a-days there are dedicated Christians who hold to the doctrine known as Cessationism which asserts that spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy and healings ceased with the apostolic age of the church. This belief is primarily associated with Reformed theology and argues that these gifts were specific to the early church for establishing doctrine and authenticating the apostles’ ministry. However, there is no mention in the Bible that such a thing has happened. So, is the “new doctrine of Cessationism anything more than a good guess, at best, or just a poor excuse, at worst?

Since the Cessationists can use experience as the basis for their excuse, then perhaps and I shall do the same.

Let me begin by saying, with all sincerity, I am a vile sinner, save by God’s grace through my professed faith in Jesus and His finished work of salvation on that horrible cross. I have no rights before God unless He bestows them on me, and even then, “God giveth and God taketh away”.

So, perhaps all that I have prayed for and received, all that I have personally experienced from the Hand of God are just coincidences. But after so many coincidences one has to ask, “are these really just coincidence? Or is this God watching over me, answering my prayers – some before I can even think to ask?”

For examples:

#1.  I FELL FROM A TREE.

I was about nine years old and like many nine year old boys, I liked climbing trees. I was living with my grandparents in a rural part of Oklahoma, near Oklahoma City. One particular day, I decided to climbed to the top of a very tall cottonwood tree.

The view from over fifty feet in the air was great. The breezes were causing the top of this tree to sway so it was better than a ride at the state fair. Then suddenly, the branches which were supporting me broke and I began to fall, snapping branch after branch until a thick, stronger branch caught me and flipped me over. Now I was falling head first toward the ground.

This happened so fast that my young mind was not able to process the idea that I was about to hit the ground on my head, from fifty feet in the air. Then, suddenly, I was jerked violently to a complete stop.

I was dazed and confused. Hanging upside down, I looked up to see that my foot was caught in a forked branch of the tree. And, not just any branch, but THE VERY LAST BRANCH of the tree. I slowly realized that I had, at least, been spared serious injury.

Now came the problem of how to get out of this predicament. I hung there for a while to ponder. I let my arms dangled below my head. My hands touched something, so I strained to bend my neck enough to look toward the ground. I was stunned.

Just within my reach was a fence post. The fence post was positioned directly in line with my fall. My head would have struck the top of the post had I not been caught by the branches.

Additionally, the fence post had a large steel spike in the top for draping chicken wire around a chicken enclosure. I now realized that had I continued to fall I would hit the post and driven that spike into my skull – an ugly but certain death.

The good news was that I was able to grasp the top of the post, push downward and free my foot from the forked branch and sort of vault down to the ground, with a thud.

I was shaken but not seriously injured. I just sat there, dazed and wondering.

I finally got myself together and went home. I never told my grandparents what had happened. I figured it was just another day in the life of a nine year old boy.

“Lucky me”, huh?

I had heard stories in Sunday school and church how God worked miracles and I wondered if that is what had happened for me?

#2.  YEA THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH

I was in a military electronic intelligence gathering unit. The year was 1972-1973. I had been separated from my wife so I requested and was approved for an assignment at a military installation in Florda.

On one particular day at work, things were slow as I monitored for certain radio communications. So I lazily meandered through the bandwidths. Then a strong repeating signal caught my attention, and since I had little else to do, I monitored it, then I began to copy it. It was, at first, a curiosity. As the words began to pour across my page, an alarm went off with me. I recognized some of the names of highly placed U.S. government officials, The text as not encoded as I might expect. It was in plaintext.  I called our ‘direction finding crew’ to cross-locate this signal and it was coming from a highly secured foreign embassy located in southern Florida city. I copied this message for about half an hour and then the sender signed off and all was silent. I re-read the communique and was now on full alert. I ran to our comm-desk for a review. The officer at the desk scanned a few of the pages. His eyes narrowed and his face grew dark. “Wait here”, he whispered. Then he exited behind another set of doors. About half an hour later he re-emerged with two security policemen. They removed my security clearance badge and escorted me out of the building and back to my dorm quarters. Despite my Top Secret Cryptologic security clearance I had been relieved of duty and was confined to my quarters until further notice. I was to be escorted to the mess hall and for daily exercise. (I wondered what in the world was going on?)

Two weeks passed before I was informed I had been cleared and restored to duty. But that I was being reassigned to a remote jungle region in northern Thailand on the Laotian border. To complicate my situation by orders had no predetermined date of return. (T.B.D.).

I was more than alarmed. I appealed to my commanding officer. He would not speak to me. I called my congressional representative who agreed to look into matters. A few days later a person from the congressional office called to say they could do nothing for me and that I should stay silent about the matter.

I reported to my duty station in a jungle region in northern Thailand. Our station was well equipped with an onsite medical unit, a gymnasium, a track and a 24-hour mess hall with some of the best meals I could have imagined, especially for a jungle outpost. Our station had 35 square acres of radar and antennae for electronic surveillance. Our perimeter had double rows of 12 foot high steel fences all topped with double rows of barbed wire. The twenty feet of ground between the fences was littered with protective landmines. We were in a very secured area. Nonetheless, we experience attempted incursions by enemy communist sappers. There were occasions when we were required to draw weapons and defend the perimeter. (Although we were not combat troops, because the Thai army had abandoned their post, we were on our own).

This is where things get interesting. After one particular evening after an enemy incursion alert and a defensive ‘foxhole maneuver’, a friend suggested that if things kept getting worse, we may not make it home. I agreed. He then talked to me about accepting Jesus as Savior. Which I did. I fully surrendered my life to Him that night.

 

Coincidentally, a few days earlier, I had written a letter to my mother-in-law telling here where I was and some of what had happened. She then gave my letter to my wife to read. Several weeks later I got a letter from my wife saying, “I knew you would not wait forever”. I now hoped to see her again and restore our marriage.

Then, in last 1974 we were told Saigon in South Vietnam had fallen to the communists, and we were abandoning camp and being sent out of our jungle camp in pairs of two. We were told to go to the Thai Royal Airbase in Udorn and find our own way to Bangkok to find a way back stateside! We are being abandoned and on our own.

My partner never showed up, so I left on my own. I managed to get to the Air Base late one night. I entered the base gates and wandered around for a while, looking for the headquarters. I passed by an airplane hanger and noticing the doors were slightly opened and lights were on, I looked inside. What I was shocked me. It appeared to be a flying saucer of sorts! (It turned out to be the SR-71 Blackbird surveillance aircraft, which was a top secret aircraft and never-before-seen in public.) Suddenly, two air force MPs appeared and put me under arrest and in handcuffs. I protested that I had a Top Secret security clearance, and all they would say is that was not high enough.

On the way to the MP shack and the brig, I supposed, an old acquaintance and the officer of the day on this particular night in the remote location, walked up and asked what was going on? The MPs explained that I had trespassed into a secured area. The officer said he would take it from there. I was released to his custody. “What are you doing here, Mike” he asked. “I could ask you the same thing! But I am just relieved you are here”, I replied. I explained we had abandoned our base near Udon Thani. He was aware of the chaos and confusion around the areas in Viet Nam, Thailand and Laos because of the fall of Saigon a week earlier. He gave me a place to sleep and instructed me that he would get me in the morning and put me on a mail plane headed to Bangkok the next morning. (I had gone from lost to arrested; from arrested to freed and cared for; from rested up to being sent on my way home. A coincidence?)

Then after a month in Bangkok, dealing with corrupt Thai officials and finally having to threaten the life one corrupt Thai official who was demanding a payoff with a makeshift weapon in order to get aboard an American sponsored flight home, by making him walk me to the plane while I held a knife against his back in order to finally get on board – was enough. I held my breathe until the aircraft was airborne and we were on our way back to the U.S.

Upon reaching Las Angeles I called my wife and asked to see her. She agreed. We met and I discovered that she had come to Christ about the same time as I – a half world away! We met and talked. Then I went on to my next duty station in San Antonio, Texas, alone.

After settling into my duty station, we would write back and forth. Then on a phone call one day I asked if we could reunite. She said she still did not know if she could fully trust me but that she could fully trust God; so she agreed. I took some leave and we repeated our vows with friends in attendance and began our new life as Newborn Christians.

#3.  HE EVEN CONTROLS THE ELEMENTS

Our family was travelling from a vacation in Orlando, Florida. My sons were about five and eight years old. We stopped at a ‘pull off area’, sort-of-a rest stop, on highway A-1-A somewhere near Saint Augustine, Florida.

The weather was cloudy and blustery. The waves were splashing onto the sidewalk along the shore line, which was lined with large stones to stop erosion, I guessed.

My youngest son, I and walked to the end of a sidewalk cul-de-sac to look at the splashing water. I felt safe enough, then suddenly a huge wave crashed over the rock abutment and onto the two of us. When the water receded, my son was gone! The wave had sucked him into the turbulent water and I could see no trace of him. Prayers began to race in my mind and out of my mouth.

Psalm 116:8-9

For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
I will walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

Panic seized me and my first thought was, “GO GET HIM!”. So, I kicked off my tennis shoes and turned to dive into the water, which was probably a very bad idea, when another huge wave crashed onshore and as suddenly there was my son Jody, standing upright on the sidewalk, soaking wet, sputtering water and crying! I grabbed him and ran back toward the car, thinking, “WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Nobody is going to believe this.”

#4.  ONE MAN’S TRASH

I was selling life insurance for a living and I was barely paying the bills. Then one day, a friend and insurance colleague approached me and showed me an advertising mail piece he owned which he had an advertising agency develop. He said he was tired of the insurance business and was moving on to other things but wanted to know if I would want his mail piece? I asked why he was giving it away? He said the return response on this mailer was too low – around one half percent or lower. I asked how much he wanted for it, and he said he would just give it to me. I reviewed the mail piece and accepted his generous offer. Then I told him I would change some of the wording and I would copyright the piece, so he could not get it back. He grunted and told me he could care less.

After rewording the mail piece into the ‘whole truth’ about its nature (I clearly stated it was for a life insurance quote to cover their existing or new home mortgage. I mailed a sample mailing. The response astounded me. It was around fifteen percent! This was unheard of in any kind of mail-response.

I prayed that God would continue to direct me in this new effort. I sensed we could open new areas. I would need agents, computers and a willing insurance company to deal with, I would need an office. (I was working from my home and living room).

My wife joined me and we began our adventure. She took over data processing and payroll. I went our home town to cities and towns up and down the east coast, contracting and training data collectors to gather information on new home mortgages. I contracted insurance agents to work various cities and towns. We incorporated and our business grew. Then, out of the blue, as they say, a man from an insurance company called me to recruit me. We talked and I ended up hanging up on him. He was to high pressure and sounded to slick. I and our agency was made up of ordinary honest folks. This man called me back again and again until I agreed to meet. They flew me to their home office and I met two of the V.P.s and discovered they were solid Christian men. I explained how we worked and what we needed and they agreed to fashion products and systems to fit our efforts.

I had a staff to work in our newly created mailroom. But after about two years I had to purchase automated mailing equipment to handle our increasing volume of mail. Our agency grew to be one of the largest and most profitable of its kind with an ROI of roughly twenty percent! (And by the way, the man who sold me the mail piece came to work as an agent, selling for us. I felt compelled to see to it that our agents could earn far above average incomes by paying them fairly. And likewise, I saw to it that our data collection staff made triple the going hourly rate. God was blessing.) Is that some coincident or not?

#5.  GOD IS OMNIPRESENT

I had started a mailing business that depended on a mail program to work properly each week. Even a one day delay of getting the mail prepared and sent would be financially disastrous for my business and for our family’s financial needs.

One particular week, this computer program stopped working. The data input from, what was then called ‘floppy disks’, would not work. I feverously tried again and again. I even reformatted the entire hard drive, reinstalled the operating system on the computer, reinstalled the mailing programs and when I tried to download the homeowner’s data FROM THE 26 FLOPPY DISKS, the program would fail at disk number 18, and disks 18 through 26 were the critical disks. I prayed continuously. I prayed fervently. I prayed desperately.

I worked on this for TWELVE hours (through the entire night and into the next morning), reformatting the hard drive and repeating the process, knowing that if this failed, we would become bankrupt and could not even buy groceries the next month.

I stopped in exhaustion, cried out to God, “I give up. I quit! I have prayed and prayed to you! Now, I give up.”

I started putting things away in resignation. I was defeated. My mind darted back and forth between what to do next and resentment. It was then I decided to do this ONE MORE TIME.

I restarted the computer and put disk number one into the computer. The computer whirred and gave me a screen message that confused me, “INSERT DISK #18”. I was completely confounded. It made absolutely no sense that the computer would skip disks 1 through 17 and ask for disk 18.

I followed the instruction and inserted disk #18. The program accepted disk #18 and another message came on the screen asking for disk #19. This continued until disk #26, the final disk, and after installing the data from disk #26, the machine turned itself off! It did it own its own!

My heart was beating what seemed like a hundred beats a minute. I restarted the computer and told it to start printing the mailing list, AND IT WORKED!

God had answered in a humanly impossible situation, in a physically impossible way. As far as I could tell, every logical law of math and programming had been violated and transcended. Yet, here we were. Saved again. Safe and sound. BUT IT WAS NOT EASY.

#6.  THEY FOUND HER!

Dale, a lady from our church in Virginia, came to me after services. She looked frantic. “Would you pray for my daughter?”, she asked.

“Sure”, I replied, “what do you want to pray about?” I was both uncertain and surprised. I wasn’t sure what the daughter or the Mom needed and I was surprised because Dale did not like me all that much.

We were members of a small Baptist Church and this church avoided “expressive worship” and were mostly quiet about miracles. I, on the other hand, was “slightly expressive” and was familiar with miracles.

Dale explained to me that her daughter had stolen their car and had run away and had not been heard from for several days. Dale and her husband had alerted the local police but there had been no word on her.

“Dale”, I began, “I know you don’t like me that much, so I have to ask why you are asking me to pray with you?”

“It’s not that I don’t like you, Mike”, Dale said, “It’s just that you are so, I don’t know, OUT THERE. But, I also know that God answers your prayers. So, please, pray for us.”

“OK, Dale, let’s pray right now.”

“Here”, Dale asked, looking surprised. “Right here in the church parking lot?”

“Why not?”, I responded. “You need help and I say let’s get to it”.

I grabbed Dale’s hands in my hands and began to pray and AS WE WERE PRAYING her cell phone rang. I opened my eyes and saw Dale peeking at the cell phone.

“Hold on a minute”, Dale said, “This could be important.” I watched as Dale’s expression change and she began to cry and shouted THANK YOU, several times into the phone. I heard Dale say, “Yes, yes yes. Oh, I love you too honey. Just come home.”

She listened further, agreed to whatever the caller instructed. She disconnected the call and, her face wet with tears and half laughing, half crying she exclaimed, “They found her!”

The call was from the South Carolina State Police. It seems a State Trooper had seen a car stopped on the side of the road on Interstate 95. He stopped to see if there was a problem and found Dale’s daughter. She had just then, run out of gas.

Dale look at me and said, “SEE! I knew God would hear your prayers!”

“That’s nice, Dale, I protested, “But, God already knew what was going to happen. And it wasn’t my prayers. It was you crying out to Him. It was God at work for you and your daughter. I just happened to be in the way. Please, no credit here. Give all the credit to God.”

What was that? I mean, it happened just like I have explained. What was that?

#7.  ARE YOU A PRAYING MAN?

It was the first Thursday of December, 2012. My eye sight clouded over. I called my ophthalmologist’s office for an emergency appointment.

The doctor examined my eyes and told me to immediately call my family physician. There was blood in my eye and he could not identify the source, but, he said it was from a source outside the eye and it looked bad.

I called my family doctor’s office and explained what the ophthalmologist said. The nurse spoke to the doctor and he told me to come in on Monday.

The “curtain” lingered over my eye sight, but got no worse.

On Saturday, my wife and I went to breakfast with friends. At the end of breakfast, I told my wife I need to get home. I was not feeling ‘right’. When she asked me what was wrong, I could only tell her that something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t pinpoint the problem.

We got home and I sat down and closed my eyes to rest. After a few minutes, my wife asked me how I was feeling.

I opened my eyes to talk to her and I was shocked that half of her face was gone! I practically shrieked, “What happened to your face?”

My outburst frightened her and with a confused look she said, “What do you mean?”

“Your face! What has happened to your face?” I yelled.

She ran to a mirror then came back to the room I was in and said, “Get up. I’m taking you to the hospital emergency room”.

By this time I had regained my vision and I said, “No. It’s OK now. I just need a walk and something to eat. I’m OK”.

I went for a walk. By the time I got home my vision was distorted again. My wife made me get into our car and she drove to the emergency room.

I went to the receiving window to check in. The lady behind the window asked what I needed. I couldn’t talk.

The next thing I knew is she had sounded an alarm and several people emerged with a gurney, put me on the gurney and away I went to an examination room.

My wife showed up and was asking about me. I had regained my ability to talk so I asked the nurse, “Why do you have a sign on the wall that says “U-R-S-E-S     S-T-A-T-I”?

The nurse turned toward me and said, “That’s called vision cut! This man’s having a stroke.”

The nurse leaned over me and asked, “Are you a praying man?”

“Yes”, I replied.

“Well, now would be a good time to start”, she said.

The rest is a partial blur. A neurologist barking orders. And M.R.I. Something called a “clot buster”. Then, a bed in intensive care.

After 2 days in intensive care, one of the two neurologists working on me, came by to say he didn’t think I had a stroke. I was relieved. I was thinking, perhaps I could go home.

Later that day, the neurologist came back to inform me he had read the M.R.I. and I had not had one, but two strokes. There were two “dead spots” on my brain.

The fourth day I had progressed enough that I was moved to the general hospital area. My speech was coming back and my vision had come back. I was a bit ‘wobbly’ but improved.

My wife, my family and I were praying this entire time. And now, after 4 days, I was wanting to go home. I felt it was time. So, I got out of my bed and started walking the hospital halls.

My nurse saw me and demanded I get back into bed. I told her and doctor that I was feeling good enough and that I was ready to go home. They said I needed to lay down and rest.

I got out of the bed and started dressing. They said they couldn’t make me stay there, but that I would have to ride to my car in a wheelchair. I refused and walked to my car (still wobbly, but walking).

Two weeks later, I preached the Sunday evening service at my Church. Many responded.

About six month later, as I like to say it, “The lights came back on in my head, fully”.

About a year later a checkup and another M.R.I., showed I had indeed had two strokes and there were two separate dead areas on my brain.

As I write this, over 11 years have passed.

#8.  YEP. THAT’S GOING TO SCAR.

I returned to my ophthalmologist for a check-up several months after having a stroke. I was still bothered by some kind of obstruction in my eye. The doctor informed me that a blood clot had passed through my eye and had scarred the lens.

I asked if it could be corrected? The doctor told me that there was nothing that could be done, but over time I would become accustomed to the scarring and it would be less annoying.

Several months later, while at church, I was relating the trouble with the scarring in my eye to a friend, and she said she had a similar problem that had resolved itself. She asked if she could ‘lay hands over my eye’ and pray. I agreed. Sadly, nothing happened.

Then several months later I became aware that the obstruction of my vision had cleared up.

At the conclusion my next ophthalmologist checkup, the doctor said my eyes were looking very good.

I asked him about the scarring. He said, “there is no scarring in your eyes”.

I asked him to review his chart notes. He studied the notes and muttered, “Well, that’s odd.”

I asked him what he meant and he replied, “The scarring is gone. Well, good for you.”

“But I thought you said it was a permanent scar. What do you think happened?”, I pressed.

“I don’t know”, he answered. “I just don’t know.”

I related how a friend had prayed for my eye to heal and asked if now it is healed?

“Well, I don’t know about that!”, he retorted.

“Okay”, I said. “I do know. I have had great medical care, but I have a greater God who has shown me mercy and has healed my eye!”

“Whatever”, the doctor smugly replied.

As I was paying my bill, the young medical assistant told me that she had heard my exchange with the doctor, and she knew what had happened – “It was a miracle”, she said.

What has happened? Well, there are just so many of these stories in my life. What do you think? Was it God. Was it miracles? I believe it was and is!

I could go on and tell you about how God saved us and our marriage 43 years ago.

I could tell you how we couldn’t have children until we were 37 years old, then we had two, and the first one was born on my birthday! (really, God?)

Or, I could tell you about…

Well, there are just too many.

Too me it’s pretty obvious. What do you think?

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young

PS: I have had people tell me that maybe I should ‘cool it’ about the miraculous-seeming ways God has directed and blessed me, my family and my friends, because it does not always happen that way and certainly to everyone. And that is true. God deals with each person in His own ways. So let me say that I have omitted all the troubles, trials, sorrows and failures I have faced along life’s way. And I have had more than my share of troubles. (Born to a teenage mom. Father was a raging angry and abusive man. My mother was married three times. She became an alcoholic and drug abuser. I was raised mostly by my Godly grandparents. I was on my own by eighteen years of age. But you don’t need to hear this. What I want you to know is that God took what was meant as evil and turned it for my good! For God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose.

I fall short, so often. And, many times, feel like I am not worthy of God’s abounding Grace or the favors He has shown and continues to show me. But I am always deeply grateful. The older I have gotten, the more humbled I feel by His Goodness and His endless Mercies.

But coincidences? Naw. Just too many.